Belfast

On St Patrick’s Day morning I found myself in what felt like the arctic tundra but was actually Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. The occasion was to cheer on some friends who were running the Craic 10k race. The biting wind and snow just added to the desolate gloom of the place. Now to be fair it was bad weather in most places, but I have been to the Titanic Quarter in July and the wind would cut you. The whole area just has … Read more

Peter O’Neill is the director and founder of the Imagine Festival of Politics and Ideas. Politics in Northern Ireland has had a tough year. With no Executive since January 2017, an election that changed little just over a year ago and the prospect of our departure from the EU firmly on the horizon, you could be forgiven for thinking that ideas on how to overcome these challenges are in short supply. One of the victims of the political impasse has … Read more

The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Nuala McAllister visited an A level Politics class last week to ask students how they viewed Belfast and, in line with her theme for her year as Lord Mayor of ‘Global Belfast’, how the city could be more welcoming. The Alliance Party politician expressed her dismay at the rise of hate crime in Belfast and explained to the students that she believed that sectarian attitudes were still prevalent in Northern Ireland. She drew a contrast between … Read more

Dr Gráinne Watson spoke to Slugger about ‘smart cities’ ahead of her session at Thursday’s Big Data Belfast conference. The concept has burgeoned as local and national governments try to address the impact of climate change, recycling targets, urban regeneration, transport congestion and economic investment.

So much of our modern city space is dedicated to cars, the needs of the automobile take priority in almost every city’s layout. This causes pedestrians and cyclists to be pushed to narrow pavements and cycles lanes, both having to navigate through traffic as they go. One alternative to this norm is the “Superblock” scheme currently being implemented across cities in Spain. You take an area of blocks and close off the inside to ‘through’ traffic i.e buses and big … Read more

SIR RICHARD NEEDHAM reflects on the city of Belfast which he says “is hobbling along a long way behind” comparable cities like Bristol. “Belfast is in real danger of being left behind.” Direct Rule isn’t the solution. Brexit is an utter disaster. By playing party politics, NI politicians are not helping Belfast grow.

INTERVIEW WITH Sir Richard Needham about the Tall Ships which first visited Belfast back in July 1991. It was the first large-scale event expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each day. Recently released government papers show that extra car parking spaces were needed, and there was a suggestion that the M2 could be used for parking.

1 HOUR 35 MINUTE direct Belfast-Dublin train journeys envisaged in 1990/1 according to government files released under the 30/20 Year Rule. Today’s journey time – with four extra stops – is never faster than 2 hours 5 minutes. Why?

I don’t think anything better defines the Twelfth for me than the sight and the sound of a well-played Lambeg drum. Pun intended, but the oul Lambeg is hard to beat. I’ll be honest, though. The first time I heard a Lambeg as a child – at a Twelfth parade in Moira if I recall correctly – I must have jumped so high out of my skin that I could have touched the top of arch. But gradually, as … Read more

The mayhem an estimated 900 troubled youths impose on the West Belfast community – a community of 100,000 souls – is staggering according to a N. Ireland Assembly report which is putting in place a support programme to turn lives around. These individuals, mostly males, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, act antisocially which is a problem yes but the real worry is that, for a small but significant number at least, self-harm and suicide is a real … Read more

At it’s zenith – possibly due to what some might call the electoral dividends of delivering peace in Northern Ireland – the UUP polled 25,272 across the 4 Belfast Constituencies, polling 9,620 and 9,533 in East and South Belfast respectively. However, by 2007, the UUP had shed over 10,000 votes in the Belfast Area with sharp declines in East and South Belfast bringing the vote share across Belfast to 15,145. Just last May, the UUP share had fallen to it’s … Read more

Belfast has been transformed over the last decade. The once desolate Cathedral Quarter is now attracting thousands of revelers every week. The Titanic Quarter is seeing massive investment by companies overseas and local. It seems every other day a new bar or restaurant is popping up. But we can do more. Belfast city centre has one of the lowest occupancy rates of any city in the UK or Ireland. How do we attract people to live in the city … Read more

Walking past the students at their tabletops, working on their assignments with mock constructions at the School of Architecture at the Ulster University Belfast campus, there was no mistaking that I found the venue for the launch event for Successful Belfast, described in an advance notice by founding director of Belfast Buildings Trust, Ms Fionnuala Jay-O’Boyle, as “a city-focused think-tank”.

The Presbyterian Moderator, Rt Rev Dr Frank Sellar, delivered the 2016 Ulster University Chaplaincy lecture last night. Speaking under the title of “A City of Hope, Leadership and Compassion”, his comments on bonfires attracted a lot of attention this morning.

What is public art’s role in reimagining Northern Ireland’s post-conflict identity? What was the social impact of the 1941 Belfast Blitz? A look at the OU’s prisons oral history project. The role of sport in society – transformative or not? And discussing being an parent with an autistic child.

Guardian TV critic Stuart Heritage with a nail on head review of the “dead dog of a show” that The Fall became. From the Guardian review Even by most recent standards, The Fall was dire this year. Now that it’s done, and Paul Spector is dead and Stella Gibson is back enigmatically muttering like a woman who lost her keys, it’s hard to fathom why anyone was ever excited about this dreary puddle of a show in the first place. … Read more

This is a rare post from myself that is almost entirely from the perspective of being a motorist. As Belfast City Council’s Growth and Regeneration committee recommends that they do not offer free parking after 6pm or on Saturdays coming up to Christmas, my first reaction is that in fact we are only really discussing one thing: free parking on a Saturday. But what about parking for late night shopping? Well, only three council car parks charge after 6pm – … Read more

130 YEARS AGO One Clarence Street exported fancy hankies around the world, Today Sixteen South are creating kids TV shows that are sold to more than one hundred countries. Today they celebrated the opening of their new offices in Belfast, though a cloud of Brexit hangs over their industry.

Yesterday I was at the Power of Video Conference held at the shiny new Waterfront extension. As you may have guessed from the title, it was all about using video online. Video can be enormously popular online. The video below was put on our Facebook page a few months ago and so far over a million people have watched it. Bonkers. For those of us over a certain age the whole Youtube stars thing has probably passed us by. In … Read more